In honor of the winner of the Outstanding Community Achievement award, this presentation will be done in a format I know she liked: storytelling.

A man older than the ancient street he walked on sighed.

He always hated the rain, especially when it hit older cities so hard- everything turned muggy and foggy and gray. This man, despite his age, didn’t look the part. In fact, for the most part, he looked quite a lot like any other young adult male, the only real distinguishing feature he seemed to have were tightly-wrapped bandages around his eyes. To most, this would give the appearance that he was blind, but his other senses more than made up for any visual shortcomings and his actual vision was greatly impaired in conditions of bright light, so he simply preferred to keep his eyes concealed.

It was a tragedy, in some ways. His sensory deprivation meant that he’d never truly taken in the beauty of bright, radiant colors, the beauty of a meadow on a bright summer day, and even the glistening intimacy that we find in the eyes of other people. At least not in this lifetime. For someone so old, his view of the world was shockingly narrow, as dim and dark as his condition made it out to be.

On this day, he was a man on a mission: to scout out a local pub for the one they called ‘Walkazo’.

***

After thirty minutes in the rain, he found the place he was looking for: a lonely hole-in-the-wall restaurant/pub the locals called Mesmerize. It was run by a tall, lean, redheaded man with a strange penchant for spiral-shaped glasses- they called him Anton. Our mercenary scanned the bar’s occupants carefully, searching for but not finding his mark. He sighed in exasperation and sat at the bar to the right side of one some called Stooben and a rarer few called Patrick.

Stooben had a tall, full glass of beer on the surface of the bar in front of him, but his tired blue eyes merely stared at it. The blonde was clearly lost in thought, so our mercenary didn’t immediately try to get his attention. Instead, he silently indicated to Anton, the bartender, what he wanted from his diverse menu of alcohols and drinks. The holiday season was nearing, so he opted for rum-infused eggnog: an old favorite of his.

The drink was set in front of him very quickly. Despite the fact that he didn’t use his eyes to see at all, the mercenary’s head was turned toward the transfixed Stooben, silently waiting for him to exit his mesmerized state while the mercenary raised his glass to his lips and sipped.

Delicious.

After a few minutes of this, he coughed, and Stooben jumped back into reality. “Oh!” Patrick exclaimed, “I’m so sorry! What do you need?”

The mercenary knew that Stooben was close friends with his mark, yet decided to be upfront. “I’m looking for a friend of yours,” he said, “Walkazo. I have a package to deliver to her.”

Stooben sighed. “We were supposed to meet today,” he said sadly, “But I was late again. This time by two hours. Right now, she could be anywhere- she could be working at the Database Building, she could be out looking for birds, she could be writing at hom-”

“I get it.” The mercenary interrupted, “Your friend is busy. We all are.”

“What’s your name?” Stooben asked.

The mercenary paused. It felt like it’d been a lifetime since he’d been asked that question- as his usual business wasn’t much in the ways of exchanging pleasantries- and it had been even longer since he’d been inclined to lie. “Contra,” he said, knowing that he’d be recognized if he used his actual name, “Just call me Contra.”

He’d met all these people before. In another life. In so many different iterations of this old story he’d lost count. This time, he was a stranger to them, and he was okay with that.

Stooben bit his lip. “You look a little familiar, but I can’t say I’ve heard that one before.”

Contra chuckled. “Not many people have. Can you finish my delivery for me?”

Stooben twisted in his bar stool and held out his right hand. From seemingly nowhere, Contra pulled out a rectangular, wrapped package about the size of a shoebox, and placed it in Stooben’s waiting hand.

“What is this?” Stooben asked.

“It’s a gift,” Contra stated, “From my employer to her. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to you, I don’t think.”

Contra bit his tongue. Hi, Stooben, I’m your best friend in three different universes before this one, even though you’ve never met me here before. Also, in this package are things from those universes. This all makes complete sense and I’m not crazy at all.

Contra obliged, moving his hands to his bandages and slowly unravelling him. As they fell off his face, Stooben gave a light gasp, though he wasn’t sure why, and Contra held his eyes firmly shut.

“Is that...is that you?”

The mercenary lied, shook his head. Not here. Not like this.

“Look at me!” Stooben demanded.

Contra opened his eyes slowly. Despite the low-light conditions of the bar, he was momentarily blinded by the intensity of it all. It took a full minute of staring ahead and blinking before he could make out the face of his old best friend before him, who looked pained and on the verge of tears.

“That’s me.” Contra said, weakly. “Where I’m from, it’s...it’s too late to give all of this to her. All the things we left unsaid. All the things we didn’t do.”

Stooben gulped. “Do you mean...?”

“You know what I mean.” Contra said, “But it doesn’t matter. Not here, it doesn’t. She’ll always live here. Just like you. Just like me.”

Stooben paused. “What did she mean to you, back then?”

“She gave me the skills I needed to take control of my life.” Contra said, “I’m...not doing the best job this time. Not since she left.”

“Well, you’re here now, right?” Stooben said, leaning forward and grabbing the other man’s hand, “You’re here now, and that’s what matters. And you don’t need to be alone.”

Contra sighed. “I do. At least for a little while. Will you get this to her for me?”

“I will.” Patrick promised. “Anything else?”

“Spend all the time you can with people.” Contra said, standing and starting to move from the bar, “You never know when they’ll enter your life and you never know when they’ll leave. Make sure everyone knows what they mean to you. Make sure that they know they aren’t alone.”

“What about you, then?” Patrick asked, “What are you going to do?”

Contra stared at the bandages in his hands with his own two eyes, pondering whether he wanted to put them back on, which was easy, or to tackle the difficulty of learning to see again.

Walkazo came in first place for Outstanding Community Achievement. Nobody here is ever going to forget that, and the contributions she's left behind in all of her walks of life will never die. Thank you, Walkazo, and thank you for reading this.

Congratulations to all of the winners for...winning! And to all of the nominees for being nominated, and our presenters for presenting, and for the friends we made along the way~.

I’m proud of how smoothly this year went, and hopefully will continue to go as I pre-write this closing script a couple days before the actual implementation of the ceremony! HELLO FUTURE-ANTON, I HOPE YOU’RE ENJOYING THOSE CHOCOLATE SNACK PIES I BOUGHT FOR YOU!!!

Thank you for attending User Awards IX!

That’s it for the UP Awards! In ten minutes, ‘Shroom Awards VII will begin with the introduction from the Host, Pidgey. In fifteen minutes, Pidgey will post up the first ‘Shroom Awards presentation: S1 - Favorite Director.